Professor Bucrland on the Bones of Mastodon , ^c.from Ava. 'SHb 



wood is found after storms exposed along- the shores, being- washed outof tlie 

 banks that are continually wasting- by the waves. The evidence before us 

 then is such, that I believe no practical geologist will be disposed to assign 

 the origin either of the wood or bones under consideration, to the compara- 

 tively impotent exertions of existing causes. The question reserved for him 

 is, whether some of these remains may not also occur in the most recent 

 tertiary strata, as well as in the diluvium of Asia : — the analogy of Europe 

 would lead him to expect the same Manunalia in both ; we have however in 

 the specimens before us not one shell of any kind adhering to the bones, or 

 in the agglutinated sand and gravel attached to them ; and in Mr. Crawfurd's 

 notes, there is no evidence to show that any bones were found, except in the 

 deposits of sand and gravel near Wetmasut, and these differ materially from 

 every specimen in his collection which we recognise as identical with the 

 tertiary strata of our own country. 



It is of course impossible for any person who has not been on the spot, to 

 decide with certainty on a question which requires so much minute local in- 

 vestigation by a very experienced observer. J shall therefore conclude with 

 recapitulating the only three speculations that I conceive can be proposed, 

 to explain with probability the date and origin of the bones before us. 



I. Either they were lodged in the most recent marine sediments of the ter- 

 tiary formation, like the elephant in the crag of Norfolk, the rhinoceros of 

 Placenza, and the mastodon of Dax and Asti ; 



II. Or in antediluvian freshwater deposits, analogous to those which contain 

 the rhinoceros, elephant, hippopotamus and mastodon in the Val' d'Arno ; 



III. Or in diluvial accumulations more recent than either of these forma- 

 tions, and spread irregularly, like a mantle, over them both. 



Now, as we find on careful examination of the matrix adhering to these 

 bones, that it contains neither freshwater nor marine shells, and is wholly 

 different in character from all the specimens which contain such shells, and 

 which thereby enable us to refer them respectively to freshwater or marine 

 origin ; the most probable conclusion we can arrive at is, that the bones 

 belong to neither of these formations, and that their matrix is of the same 

 diluvial character with that in which the greater part of the fossil bones of 

 Mammalia have been discovered in Europe. 



Having- proceeded thus far in our consideration of the nature of the bones 

 before us, the time when the animals lived to which they belong, and the 

 most probable causes that brought them to their actual place and condition, — 

 we may now consider the evidence on which it has been asserted in the pre- 

 ceding pages, that the strata subjacent to the Burmese diluvium, alon^ nearly 



VOL. II. SECOND SERIES. 3 E 



